iPhone cases, therapeutic robots, and miscellanea

Many of the exhibitors at CES are small Taiwanese or Chinese companies you never heard of, and it's amazing how many seem to be hawking the same type of products. There seemed to be dozens of displays of iPhone cases and small digital cameras. You would think the world had enough manufacturers of iPhone cases, small digital cameras, and the like. You'd be wrong.

And let's not forget Bluetooth headsets and digital photo frames! By my count the anonymous company in the photos below makes at least 13 different models of Bluetooth headsets.

But a few unique products stood out. The Paro Therapeutic Robot is a little animatron of a baby harp seal. Apparently intended for invalids or shut-ins, it can, according to the company, "reduce stress on patients and caregivers" and "improve socialization of patients and caregivers".

The HoverCam X500 is a thin aluminum post whose top unfolds to reveal a 5 megapixel scanner. You place whatever you want to scan below it and press a button; a scan begins immediately and takes just a few seconds. For single documents it's much faster than most flatbed scanners, although the lack of a way to easily handle multiple sheet of paper would make scanning long documents tedious.

Navteq was showing their new LIDAR-based street mapping system. In addition to multiple high resolution digital cameras, the bulbous protrusion on the back of this vehicle contains a spinning mirror directing a low-power laser beam to capture high resolution positional data in real time. This is handy for determining things like the width of a road or the height of a bridge; this metadata could be added to the map produced. It would be a dandy thing to have for Google Street View.

Swiss Army Knife maker Victrinox was on-hand, too. What do knives have to to with consumer electronics? How about a knife incorporating a Class II laser pointer and a 2 or 4 gigabyte USB key?

If you like to record your athletic exploits, Liquid Image was showing their line of sports goggles with integrated cameras, including a new underwater model with lights.

There's more, much more, but the limits of time and human endurance intrude...